When Senior Mistress Miss A. Jacob retired from Headlands School Mr.Magson had this to say in the school magazine: Two comments about that: While I don’t doubt the truth of Magson’s words, I didn’t know then, and don’t know now, any student who had a good word to say about Miss Jacob. There’s a little collection of some of the…
Tag: standards
Why are we doing this to our children?
Here is child psychologist Dr. Megan Koschnick on why Early Childhood Standards of Common Core are Developmentally Inappropriate. This is her presentation from a 2013 conference at the University of Notre Dame entitled “The Changing Role of Education in America: Consequences of the Common Core.” Why do we care if Common Core standards are age inappropriate? Well, you can answer that…
What’s wrong with this picture?
I always enjoy Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog in the Washington Post. She frequently provides a platform for teacher voices and education issues so often drowned out by the drumbeat of test and standardization mania. She had a great piece last week What a Classroom Engaged in Real Learning Looks Like It’s about the work of Aleta Margolis of the…
What happens when you teach to the test?
A decade of NCLB has made an impact. From: BestMastersInEducation.com Photo: Cesar Quintero
Cookie Cutter Kids: “Send us your winners…”
…and we’ll make winners out of them” There’s a good article in the latest edition of Independent School magazine that challenges some cherished notions of excellence and the hypocrisy of so many claims about diversity, equity and justice. It is starts with a question and a well-aimed slice at the euphemisms of so many school mission statements. What does it…
What the dickens?
Looks like the new UK education minister is channeling Thomas Gradgrind: Pupils must learn about Miss Havisham, says Minister They don’t know enough facts, he says. Maybe it’s the fact that Mr. Gibbs does not know enough about Charles Dickens, the age of information and learning theory. Not to mention that his frame of reference is remarkably narrow. When politicians…
Here they come…National Standards
National Standards kindergarten through 12th grade are on their way. At PDS we are looking forward to taking a good look at all the standards and at where we converge, and diverge, in the choices we make. And also, at where we exceed and expand national (and international) expectations. As an accredited independent school we have the ability to think…
Education Off The Rails: Standards Train Wreck
In Teaching in a Knowledge Society Andy Hargreaves has a cautionary tale – Education off the Rails – about the effects of applied performance standards that push people all too easily into quick fixes rather than sustainable improvement. His analogy concerns a stay he had in the UK and a railway meltdown. In that case, emphasis on standards turned into…
False Promise: The Ersatz Language of School Reform
An article by Alfie Kohn in The Nation is a timely reminder of how language is so easily co-opted to mean quite the reverse of the usual understanding. The polluters bring us “Clear Skies” and the armaments industry brings us the B36 bomber – “The Peacemaker”. And now those touted as school “reformers” are heralded for ushering in a new…
NCLB: Another Perspective
Last night in his State of the Union address President Bush outlined proposals to extend the NCLB (“No Child Left Behind”) law. These ideas are outlined in this White House policy memo. There has been a growing chorus of concern about NCLB and this proposed extension of its impact does nothing to allay those fears. Here are two alternative sources…